Category: Canadian Light Source (CLS)

Newly discovered protein stops DNA damage

Newly discovered protein stops DNA damage

Researchers from Western University have discovered a protein that has the never-before-seen ability to stop DNA damage in its tracks. The finding could provide the foundation for developing everything from vaccines against cancer, to crops that can withstand the increasingly harsh growing conditions brought on by climate change.

The researchers found the protein – called DdrC (for DNA Damage Repair Protein C) — in a fairly common bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans (D. radiodurans), which has the decidedly uncommon ability to survive conditions that damage DNA – for example, 5,000 to 10,000 times the radiation that would kill a regular human cell. Lead researcher Robert Szabla says Deinococcus also excels in repairing DNA that has already been damaged.“It’s as if you had a player in the NFL who plays every game without a helmet or pads,” says Szabla, a grad student in Western’s Department of Biochemistry. “He’d end up with a concussion and multiple broken bones every single game, but then miraculously make a full recovery overnight in time for practice the next day.” He and his colleagues discovered that DdrC is a key player in this repair process.

Read more on CLS website

Thin layer of tin prevents short-circuiting in lithium-ion batteries

Thin layer of tin prevents short-circuiting in lithium-ion batteries

ithium-ion batteries have a lot of advantages. They charge quickly, have a high energy density, and can be repeatedly charged and discharged.

They do have one significant shortcoming, however: they’re prone to short-circuiting.  This occurs when a connection forms between the two electrodes inside the cell. A short circuit can result in a sudden loss of voltage or the rapid discharge of high current, both causing the battery to fail. In extreme cases, a short circuit can cause a cell to overheat, start on fire, or even explode.

A leading cause of short circuits are rough, tree-like crystal structures called dendrites that can form on the surface of one of the electrodes. When dendrites grow all the way across the cell and make contact with the other electrode, a short circuit can occur.

Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), researchers from the University of Alberta (UAlberta) have come up with a promising approach to prevent formation of dendrites in solid-state lithium-ion batteries. They found that adding a tin-rich layer between the electrode and the electrolyte helps spread the lithium around when it’s being deposited on the battery, creating a smooth surface that suppresses the formation of dendrites. The results are published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. The team also found that the cell modified with the tin-rich structure can operate at a much higher current and withstand many more charging-discharging cycles than a regular cell.

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Finding solutions to problem of clumping in potash

Finding solutions to problem of clumping in potash

When powdered products like sugar, salt, or instant coffee are exposed to moisture, they form clumps and become much harder to use. The same thing happens to potash-based fertilizers and other potash products, where clumping can lead to industrial and agricultural waste. That’s why Saskatchewan researchers are taking a closer look at studying why clumps form in powdered products and what can be done to avoid this.

Dr. Lifeng Zhang recently came to the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) with other members of USask’s Particle Technology Research Lab, and used the BMIT-BM beamline to study in real time how clumps form in potash products.

“This research is the first one actually looking into the caking and clumping phenomena using x-ray imaging,” says Zhang. “Previously, other methods or instruments have been used, but they cannot see this dynamic process.”

The team used a technique called synchrotron-based X-ray tomography to take detailed 3D images of potash particles and the tiny bridges that form between them, which create the clumps.

“Something other methods cannot see,” Zhang continues, “here we can see it using synchrotron-based x-ray imaging. I can see that small-scale spread or caking occurring within minutes—that’s really exciting.”

This research, done in collaboration with industry partner Mosaic, originally set out to study ways of improving the drying process for potash products, but the research evolved when they discovered that clumping was occurring not only after, but also during the drying process. The team’s findings were published in the journal Particuology.

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Using sodium to make more sustainable batteries

Using sodium to make more sustainable batteries

The element lithium is used widely in batteries because it results in long-lasting, stable energy storage. However, it’s a finite resource, so researchers are hard at work trying to identify alternate materials to use in battery production. Using the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan, a team from McGill University has recently come up with a way to replace most of the lithium in batteries with sodium.

The challenge with using sodium is that the cathode material becomes unstable when it’s exposed to air, a big problem if you want to retool existing manufacturing facilities currently producing lithium-ion batteries. “The sodium reacts with carbon dioxide and water vapour in the air, and it makes sodium carbonate and other products”, says Eric McCalla an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Chemistry. “Water can actually go into the material, and convert it into a completely different structure, which is not a good battery material.”

McCalla’s team used what he calls “wild substitutions,” to simultaneously test the impact of 52 different elements on the stability of a sodium-ion battery. The HXMA beamline at the CLS helped them see detailed, localized information about the battery after use, allowing them to understand which elements were effective in keeping the battery stable, when used alongside sodium.

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Researchers develop tuneable anticounterfeiting material

Researchers develop tuneable anticounterfeiting material

Counterfeiters are getting increasingly more sophisticated in forging everything from diplomas and currency, to medications and artwork. While protective measures such as luminescent markings (which glow under ultraviolet light) have been around for a while, forgers have figured out how to exploit the weaknesses in these techniques.

Now a team of researchers from Western University has developed a promising new approach that offers multiple levels of anticounterfeiting protection, making identifying markings that much harder to forge. The technology they’ve developed uses materials with a property called persistent luminescence (PersL).

The luminescent materials currently in use for anticounterfeiting become visible when exposed to UV light, but stop glowing when the light source is removed. The new materials created by the Western team – using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) – are inorganic phosphor nanoparticles that remain visible to the human eye for several minutes after UV light is turned off. They also give off a shade of red light that’s not easily reproduced. And most significantly – an identification mark can be “programmed” to disappear in stages, with some elements vanishing almost immediately, while other elements fade away over several minutes.

The researchers achieved this tuneability by tinkering with the additives (dopants) they included in the base material, magnesium germanium oxide, to change its optical properties.

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New process makes battery production more eco friendly

New process makes battery production more eco friendly

Switching from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles is one way to reduce carbon emissions, but building the lithium-ion batteries that power those EVs can be an energy-intensive and polluting process itself. Now researchers at Dalhousie University have developed a manufacturing process that is cheaper and greener.

“Making lithium-ion cathode material takes a lot of energy and water, and produces waste. It has the biggest impact on the environment, especially the CO2 footprint of the battery,” says Dr. Mark Obrovac, a professor in Dalhousie University’s Departments of Chemistry and Physics & Atmospheric Science. “We wanted to see if there were more environmentally friendly and sustainable – and less expensive – ways to make these materials.”

Most electric vehicle batteries use lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), with the elements mixed in the crystal structure of the cathode. They are typically made by dissolving the elements in water then using the crystals that form when the elements come together as a solid. That process takes a lot of water – which then has to be treated to clean it – and energy, which is the main source of the cost and carbon footprint of the batteries. Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, Obrovac and his team investigated whether they could use an all-dry process to get the same results while saving energy, water, and money.

Their work has been published in two papers, in ACS Omega and the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.

“We wanted to see, can you get the same quality if you take dry materials and combine them using simple processes that you’d find in any large-scale factory and heat them up,” he says. “And under what conditions can you do that to get commercial-grade material while cutting out the water and the waste?”

Cathodes made from dry materials are sometimes not as homogeneous as those made in water, so the team tried a variety of methods using different oxides and heating regimes under different temperatures and pressures to determine what worked best.

Read more on CLS website

Image: A student making lithium batteries in a glove box for the evaluation of new cathode materials.

Credit: CLS

New Linear Accelerator

New Linear Accelerator

Investment will ensure continued world-leading discovery, innovation

The Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan is replacing its linear accelerator (linac), the device that speeds up electrons to produce a beam of light researchers use to study materials at a molecular or cellular level. This critical replacement will ensure the CLS continues to deliver high-quality, stable and reliable light to the over 1,000 scientists from across Canada and around the world who use the CLS each year for research related to health, agriculture, environment and advanced materials.

Starting May 27th, 2024, the CLS will begin a six-month project to remove the existing linac and replace it with a new unit that will improve the efficiency and reliability of the light beam. For the latest updates, check back on this page or follow us @canlightsource on social media for #newLINAC posts.

The latest news…

June 6: With the old linac equipment removed from our basement, our health and safety staff needed to scan these pieces for radiation before they could be recycled or donated. They have now checked over 175 items! Next, we cleaned the linac hallways and started giving them a fresh coat of paint. Our staff also fully dismantled our modulator room. Klystrons, modulators, and other infrastructure were removed, making way for the mechanical and electrical service installation that is now ongoing. We have new modulators and klystrons waiting on our experimental floor. This equipment will provide the radiofrequency energy that is used to accelerate electrons through our linac before they produce synchrotron light for research. 

Read more on CLS website

Addressing hidden hunger in developing countries

Addressing hidden hunger in developing countries

Millet, the grain, is having a moment. The United Nations declared 2023 International Year of Millets. And last September, leaders at the G20 Summit in India were treated to a smorgasbord of dishes and desserts all made from millets.

It’s easy to see why millet is getting so much love lately. It packs a bigger nutritional punch than grains like rice, wheat, and corn, it’s easier to grow — requiring less fertilizer and water — and it’s more tolerant of the drought conditions that are becoming increasingly common around the globe.

Now researchers from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – along with partners in India – have developed a deeper understanding of what makes millet such a wonder food. Using the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan – and the Advanced Photon Source near Chicago, Illinois – Dr. Raju Soolanayakanahally and colleagues looked at what millet’s genes are doing at different stages – from when it first sprouts to when it makes seeds. For instance, they identified the genes responsible for capturing and transporting nutrients within millet seeds.

By comparing this new data with genetic information from other grains, the researchers now have a better understanding of why millet is so efficient at taking up micronutrients from the soil. This new knowledge could be applied in the development of better forms of other crops such as barley and wheat. The team, which included scientists from the University of Agricultural Sciences (Bangalore, India) and the All India Coordinated Research Project on Small Millets, was also able to see where, precisely, minerals are located within millet seeds, information critical for ensuring that processing of the grain does not strip away valuable nutrients. Their findings were published recently in The Plant Journal.

“As a physiologist, I was very interested in how these neglected crops take up iron, zinc, manganese from the soil and sequester everything into the grain to make them one of the most nutrient-dense cereal crops,” says Soolanayakanahally, who grew up in Karnataka, India — where millets were the most stable local source of food. “Understanding that pathway, understanding what genes were involved, what molecular mechanisms are involved, was fascinating.”

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Researchers establish commercially viable process for manufacturing with promising new class of metals

Researchers establish commercially viable process for manufacturing with promising new class of metals

Nanostructured high entropy alloys – metals made from a chaotic mix of several different elements – show a lot of promise for use in industries such as aerospace and automotive because of their strength and stability at high temperatures compared with regular metals. But they are expensive and energy-intensive to produce. Now researchers working with the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) have found a much cheaper and easier way to make them, opening the door for commercial applications.

Michel Haché, a materials engineer at the University of Toronto, and colleagues confirmed that electrodeposition is a cost-effective and easily scaled way to create these alloys. Electrodeposition – which involves dissolving metal ions in water then using an electric current to pull them out of the liquid and form solid materials – is the same process that is used to make chrome-plated motorcycle parts. The findings are published in the journal Surface and Coatings Technology.

The U of T group found that alloys made of several different metals – nickel, iron, cobalt, tungsten, and molybdenum – could withstand temperatures up to 500oC, compared with just 270oC for pure nickel, and were stronger and harder than their less-complex counterparts. “We’re using chaos in the material structure to bring out interesting properties,” he says.

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World leader in single-atom catalysts relies on CLS to drive advances in field

World leader in single-atom catalysts relies on CLS to drive advances in field

There is a high level of interest, even excitement, among chemists and materials scientists about the potential of single-atom catalysts (SACs) but their development relies on very specialized tools available only at synchrotrons like the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask).

“This is a really exciting research area,” said Dr. Peng Zhang, professor of chemistry and of biomedical engineering at Dalhousie University, and a long-time CLS user.

Catalysts are nanoparticles coated with materials – often expensive metals like platinum, palladium and gold – that speed up chemical reactions. A significant drawback for conventional catalysts is that only a small percentage of the catalytic material is used in the chemical reaction, making them inefficient and wasteful, explained Zhang.

With growing demand for clean and sustainable energy, using SACs in energy systems can help the environment and save money. SACs have benefits like making reactions more efficient, using less rare metals, and improving the performance of devices like fuel cells and batteries. They can also help store renewable energy from sources like the sun and wind, making it more reliable.

In the case of automotive catalytic converters, which are designed to convert exhaust emissions into less toxic pollutants, Zhang said less than half of the platinum atoms in the catalyst are available for the necessary chemical reaction.

The goal of SAC research is to control the surface atomic structure of catalysts with individual atoms of the catalytic material in a matrix of less-expensive material, ensuring all of the material is available for the reaction. “When you design the catalyst to have a single-atom structure, you can significantly improve their activity and performance in the catalytic application,” said Zhang.

The challenges of working at the level of a single atom are significant, he admitted, but that is where the CLS comes in.

“If you think about single-atom catalysts, they’re so small that you need a special research tool to uncover their structure,” to understand how the atoms are arranged and what atoms are present. “Even with the most powerful electron microscope, you can probably see an individual atom, but if you’re using synchrotron technology, you can get a resolution 100 times smaller.”

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Synchrotron light helps study the past, prevent corrosion in future

Synchrotron light helps study the past, prevent corrosion in future

Techniques developed by researchers from Western University for creating images of old, badly tarnished photographs could also be used to study other historic artifacts and fossils and prevent corrosion on modern materials.  

Professor T.K. Sham and colleagues recently confirmed that a new synchrotron imaging technique they developed is just as effective for retrieving corroded daguerreotypes (the earliest form of photographs) as a technique they first reported on back in 2018, and can also be used no matter how badly damaged the image surface is from natural corrosion or cleaning attempts. The new research, which used beamlines at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), is published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

“This technique can be used widely in all walks of science, from looking at tissues to materials science,” said Sham. “For example, you could determine whether or how a metal may be corrosion-resistant, or in the case of an already corroded material you can learn what the product of that corrosion is and its distribution on the surface, and then you can work back and think about how to prevent that corrosion from happening.” 

Sham said many applications are possible because synchrotron X-ray is very tunable, which means it can pick out any element and find out what its chemical surrounding is and where it is placed in the sample, even imaging it layer by layer. 

When it comes to the conservation of antiques, Sham’s research could be a game changer too, especially for studying artifacts or fossils that have severe surface deterioration.  

As part of his new research, he uncovered images of a lady and a gentleman fashionably dressed in mid 1850s garments, and one of a baby peacefully wrapped in covers. All of these daguerreotypes, belonging to private collectors and the National Gallery of Canada, were badly damaged — slow deterioration mixed with cleaning attempts may have caused the tarnish. 

He proved that this synchrotron technique is always effective as long as the image particles underneath the tarnish remain intact, a discovery advancing his 2018 study in Scientific Reports. This research was done using the VESPERS and the SXRMB beamlines at the CLS and at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.

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Protecting drinking water on prairies from emerging pollutant

Protecting drinking water on prairies from emerging pollutant

With the help of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), researchers from the University of Guelph (UofG) have learned more about an emerging pollutant that is prevalent in groundwater across the Prairies.

“Sulfolane is commonly used to treat sour gas, and there are large contaminant plumes across Canada, specifically in Alberta,” says Erica Pensini, Associate Professor at University of Guelph’s School of Engineering. “We’ve been looking at how sulfolane migrates in groundwater, analyzing the risks to potable waters, such as wells, or other ecological bodies of water.”

Pensini is particularly interested in how naturally occurring sulfates (salts) impact the movement of sulfolane in water and its ability to mix thoroughly with water.

“Sulfolane plumes travel faster with fewer sulfates, so we’re trying to clarify migration in the context of what can we do to tackle this contamination,” says Pensini. “How much time do we have? Where is it going? Which well should we protect?”

Sulfolane has recently been linked to fertility issues in cattle and has been found in their milk.

“We’re also partnering up with hydrogeologists and eco-toxicologists to explore other aspects that we’re not directly exploring in our lab,” says Pensini.

Read more on CLS website

The fascinating future of metal tellurate materials

The fascinating future of metal tellurate materials

Scientists have determined the structure of a new material with potential to be used in solar energy, batteries, and splitting water to produce hydrogen.

The physical properties and crystal structures of most tellurate materials were only discovered during the last two decades, but they have tantalizing properties. For example, they respond to light in a way very similar to current solar materials.

“This could be one material for all applications,” says University of Oulu scientist Dr. Harishchandra Singh. “But they are new and very little is known in the literature. We are am trying to explore all its unexplored and hidden properties.”

Identifying the structure of new materials is often the first step to unlocking their potential for applications. The international team, led by Matthias Weil (Vienna University of Technology) and Dr. Singh, successfully created a single crystal of a metal tellurate compound, making it possible to precisely define its structure with better accuracy than ever before.

The pair used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to understand how the material works under real world conditions. A longtime user of the facility, Singh knew that the Brockhouse beamline could help confirm the structural details they had uncovered.

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Findings pave way for longer-lasting solid-state batteries

Findings pave way for longer-lasting solid-state batteries

Lithium-ion batteries contain flammable materials that could pose a safety risk under certain conditions. Dr. Yaser Abu-Lebdeh is one of the researchers using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to develop a safer alternative: solid-state batteries.

Solid-state batteries replace the flammable liquid electrolyte in conventional batteries with a solid ceramic-based material to pass charge through the battery.

“These oxide-based ceramics or ceramic oxides, are intrinsically safe, meaning they’re not volatile, they’re not flammable,” says Dr. Abu-Lebdeh, a team leader with the National Research Council of Canada’s battery materials innovation team.

The batteries have another major advantage: they enable the use of lithium metal and hence are able to hold a great deal of charge in a small space, making them powerful energy storage devices.

As with any new technology, there have been hiccups in the development.

“We’ve run into a problem where the batteries lose their capacity very quickly, meaning they die out very, very quickly,” says Dr. Abu-Lebdeh.

Standard lab techniques couldn’t pinpoint what was causing the early failure, so Dr. Abu-Lebdeh turned to his longtime collaborators at the CLS. Using synchrotron light — which is particularly well suited for studying batteries — they were able to identify the root causes of the battery’s premature failure: a combination of tiny structural changes and chemical changes happening in two different parts of the battery.

Dr. Abu-Lebdeh says the new insights will help them improve the mix of solid and liquid parts and how these batteries are put together. They published the results in the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Read more on CLS website

Discovery sets stage for vaccine against gastric cancer, ulcers

Discovery sets stage for vaccine against gastric cancer, ulcers

H. pylori is one of the most common disease-causing bacteria. More than half of the world’s population have the bacteria in their body; and while in Canada overall prevalence of H. pylori is between 20% and 30%, some groups – including Indigenous communities – have higher rates.

Using the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) researchers from Quebec’s National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS) have for the first time solved the structure of the protein that plays a key role in helping H. pylori stick to the lining of our stomach. Their research paves the way for developing a vaccine against the infection.

It is H. pylori’s ability to bind to the inside of the stomach that helps it survive and cause health problems. The pathogen is responsible for nearly all gastric cancers and peptic ulcers. Around one in 10 people who carry the common pathogen will develop an ulcer; almost 3% will get stomach cancer.

Professor Charles Calmettes, a biochemist at INRS, says that being able to see the structure of the protein HpaA helps scientists better understand H. pylori’s “stickiness” and why our body reacts by causing certain immune cells to cause inflammation. His team’s findings were published in the journal mBio.

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Customized programming strategies for hearing implants

Customized programming strategies for hearing implants

A Western University team has harnessed the bright light of the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) to obtain highly detailed images of the structures in the inner ear responsible for transmitting sound signals to the brain. With these images, they’ve helped pioneer customized programming strategies for hearing implants.

Because of the cochlea’s tiny, delicate, spiral-shaped structure, and the fact that it is encased in the densest bone in the human body, it is hard to use conventional techniques to study its anatomy and how implants interact with it. Synchrotron imaging changed the game by allowing scientists to visualize the cochlea in incredible detail – roughly at the scale of individual cells.

“We were able to obtain high-resolution data on the synchrotron, and then created beautiful three-dimensional images with our collaborators in Sweden,” says Western University’s Dr. Sumit Agrawal.

The team recently published the CLS-enabled mappings of 38 cochleae in the journal Laryngoscope. Agrawal says that this “gold standard data” – based on ultra-detailed imaging of the ear’s anatomy — answers many questions in the field.

The maps the team created should make a huge difference to the sound quality of cochlear implants. As sound travels down the cochlea, different pitches land at different points in the structure for us to hear them. To tune the sound, an implant needs to match these points for that particular patient’s anatomy. But without a map of the inner ear, cochlear implants can only be “one size fits all.”

“It would be like listening to an out-of-tune piano. What we’re doing now is actually mapping each of the electrodes to tune the piano for each individual patient.”

By combining high-resolution imaging from the Bio-Medical Imaging and Therapy (BMIT) facility at the CLS with the team’s deep learning algorithms, researchers can now create customized maps that match the unique anatomy of each patient’s cochlea. The deep-learning algorithm, too, was partly trained on 3D images produced at the CLS.

Read more on CLS website